"Slowing Down the Game (1)" Topic

Trying to think through what--other than players, of course--actually slows down a wargame. Understand, I'm not looking to run down particular rules sets, but I'd like some opinions about mechanisms which tend to drag out games.

My nominations are (1) simultaneous movement, with associated written orders, (2) its cousin the variable length bound, and (3) the sort of C&C systems which slow movement. Mind you, other things annoy me, and I have certainly played and enjoyed simultaneous move games. But I think these three are the big game slower. Other opinions?

Agree with 1 and 2. By 3, do you mean such things as a limited number of command points which are used to activate units, which usually means some units don't move?

One other thing which slows a game is an overly complicated mechanism for determining an outcome, such as multiple die rolls for combat results (one roll to hit, then a roll for where you hit, then a roll to see what result of hit was, etc.) Not necessarily a bad thing but slows down a game.

In my homebrew set of rules we roll three dice every time no matter what we are trying to do. They are the same four dice. And the information we are looking for is intuitive. So hit location is always 1 at the top, head shot for human, turret for a tank, and 6 is always at the bottom, below the knee for human, track / suspension for a tank. So you don't have different charts for the same concept.
The data on the dice is always intuitive. So I use a 20 sided die in 5% increments. You don't need to do math, add the two dice together to get the hit number for example. Check the chart you need 25% or less, roll the die and it says 25% or a lower number and you hit. Very simple.
I did a time / motion study of my wargames a couple decades ago and cut down on all the little things that take up 2, or 5, or 10 seconds and cut them out, combined them, or made them easier to speed up the game.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Slow is a subjective term.

A slow game is one where they enjoyment you get is too dispersed in time. Enjoyment is related to involvement, which is related to activity.

If I'm taking my turn, I'm at least active, probably involved, and may be enjoying myself. Using this model, the two breakdowns in enjoyment happen when my personal preferences are not being met (losing enjoyment) or my perception of the value of my activity relative to the outcome I desire is low (loss of involvement leading to no enjoyment). The counter to the second is you can have visceral enjoyment of activity (especially physical activity) without involvement.

On someone else's turn, involvement comes from watching the outcomes of their decisions and seeing how it interacts with my future choices. Usually, you have a stronger sense of involvement in your side's turns that aren't yours than you do with an opponent's. Again, enjoyment is the overlay of preferences on that involvement.

Generally, the enjoyment builds (gradually or in spikes) with certain activities and then decays over time when it is not increasing.

Anyway, the more things I have to do on my turn that feel like busy work rather than advancing the cause make the game slow. This slowness is amplified during other peoples' turns since you have a less strong involvement.

The more steps you have between your decision (max involvement) and the outcome of that decision, the more chances you lose involvement or enjoyment.

If I have to do a string of calculations or look-ups after a decision before I move something on the board, I start to loose enjoyment on my turn and find it hard (pointless?) to pay attention to other's turn. A mechanism where I did the same number of steps, but they are split across more actions on my part is more enjoyable.

Buckets of dice.

Count up 19 six siders.

Roll 19 six siders.

Figure out which scored a 5+

Now roll saves or armor or whatever.

Count 11 six siders.

Roll 11 six siders.

See which scored a 4+ to negate a hit.

Much refer: roll 2d6, read chart, move to next comabt.

pvivh43, in the context of slowing down the game, I was thinking of rules which had movement penalties for being a certain distance from the commander, or for having certain commanders, so you're moving as many units on your turn, but it's going to take twice as many turns to reach the objective. Just not moving, or moving fewer units may be irritating but doesn't necessarily slow down the game.

Good point about multiple rolls to determine outcome. I think EC's headed in the same direction.

EC, a good point, but your thumb's on the scale. Some chart games are faster than some bucket of dice games--but the reverse is also true. In, for example, a Mersey game, where it's always either 12 or 6 dice, score a certain number or above and divide by armor class combat can be resolved faster than I can figure out where I am on the chart or even which chart to use in certain other systems, where I'm adding up points for both sides, subtracting terrain penalties, adjusting points for armor or formation and then sliding three columns left for enfilade.

etotheipi, "slow" is NOT a subjective term if the game can't start before 11:00 and must be resolved by 2:00. I very carefully omitted several game mechanics I absolutely hate, but which I reluctantly concluded did not slow down the game. "What makes for a fun game?" would be an interesting question, but less informative.

if the game can't start before 11:00 and must be resolved by 2:00.

What is the objective criterion that says the game must be completed by 2:00?

Nothing. You don't have to complete the game in three hours, you want to complete the game in three hours. Even if external reasons cause you to only be able to play those three hours, it is still your subjective desire that the game in "resolved" in that time instead of "half resolved", or whatever.

By your logic, objectively, nearly every novel is too long. I only have half an hour before my exam to read Moby Dick, therefore the book is too long.

Convention games have set times so that another game can be played on the tables you are using.

Game system mechanics which bog down a game are;
- Writing anything down on separate pieces of paper
- Needing to remember something from a previous phase in a subsequent phase. This can even be an issue within a phase, such as all elements firing before any element moves within a player turn.
- Movement or combat which has a low probability of a positive effect, but is required to avoid being disadvantaged.
- Cross referencing multiple player aid sheets, or the rules, in order to play the game.
- Low impact, repetitive actions, such as reaction tests for a long list of triggers, or in order to move or conduct fire combat.
- Execution of a decision is high effort, such as very combat fire combat tables which require a lot of calculation and may require more than one CRT.
- Too many elements on the playing area.
- Long lists of modifiers for combat, movement, or a test.

Unregulated simultaneous movement can be an issue, but if its regulated it can flow well. Example, when an element moves with a distance of an enemy element, the enemy can conduct opportunity fire or opportunity charge.

The same goes for variable length bound, which I assume means variable length player turn. This can be executed in a complex manner or a simple manner. Example, high quality troops can conduct a quality test which gives then an additional "action", or low quality troops which need a quality test to perform normally. Other troops, which are the bulk, require no test.

Command and control can also be complex or simple, different command ranges, effects and a requirement to test each player turn for effectiveness of a commander, can all be major issues. However there are simple systems which work, such as a single range and an effect when in range and out of range. A die roll per GT for command points for no more than 3 commanders is also workable.

In all these cases the location of the action in a sequence of play is important. Having a separate air support phase which only involves aircraft movement/combat is optimal. Merging this in with other activities can cause a significant slowdown effects. The same applies with command and control determination, pre-planned indirect fire, rout recovery, army demoralisation, and anything which is not directly related to the movement and combat of your core elements.

eto, I am seriously maligned. Or maybe just misunderstood. I never said that the fastest-playing system was necessarily the best, either objectively or subjectively. But if I need, say, a paper-mache bridge for tomorrow's game, it's no good discussing methods which will take three days. And since I do sometimes only have a three-hour window, I need for those times rules which will not leave me still in the deployment phase when I have to put away the troops.

So I have asked my fellow gamers which mechanisms they feel actually slow down the game--not which ones they like or dislike, or which slow down the game but are sometimes worth it, but what things to watch out for when you have limited time. I appreciate their help, and I'll put together a summary for my own future reference. I'd appreciate your help too. Any chance of getting some?

I am seriously maligned.

I'd appreciate your help too. Any chance of getting some?

Got it. I'm the one who is making personal digs at other people.

But if I need, say, a paper-mache bridge for tomorrow's game,

This is a good example of a time constraint. It has nothing to do with rules or mechanisms. And the "need" is a subjective criterion. Which is all I said.

And since I do sometimes only have a three-hour window, I need for those times rules which will not leave me still in the deployment phase when I have to put away the troops.

So, why do you have to get past the deployment phase before time runs out?

Again, this is not an objective criterion. This is a subjective one rooted on a relative enjoyment value of deployment vs engagement(?) phases. If you enjoyed deployment as much as engagement (or whatever the other phases are), a game where you didn't get to engagement wouldn't necessarily be too slow.

And this specific example is not rules, either. It's scenario (like several others above). If you had a scenario that started you 95% of the way through the deployment phase, would the rules still be too slow?

The point is that what you are looking to improve is highly subjective and highly contextual. If you don't provide an explanation of your subjective needs and the context under which, suggestions are fundamentally random.

Convention games have set times so that another game can be played on the tables you are using.

The time constraint (this one, that one, the other one) for play is objective, and external to the rules. But what constitutes a complete game is not objective, and also external to the rules.

For example, I run a WWI Weinnachts football game at conventions. Objective time constraint. External to the rules.

Because I'm often teaching the rules during the session, different sessions have different times when I can stand back and "referee" (really support). So there are different objective speeds of play (the count of events over time) at different times.

Usually, the rules I use are quickly picked up and I can stand back fairly soon. Occasionally, later in the game, a player wants to vet a strategic concept with me as "ref". Every time (except one) when this has happened, both players were engaged in the discussion. The objective speed of the game changed, but the game did not become "slow".

The one time it was too slow, it was only too slow for Mr. I-took-five-minutes-for-my-turn-you've-had-thrity-seconds-take-your-turn-already. Not sure if you know that guy. If you do, you probably believe the problem of game speed has nothing to do with the rules.

Another example:

I have a pirate naval battle game that requires players to use maneuvering board to calculate advance and transfer based on current speed/heading, sailworthiness (affected by damage), wind, and sea state. The path of the ships is then executed along realistic lines with piecewise integration (no math, just breaking one maneuver down into smaller steps.

There are some people who would find this excruciating and slow. The people I play it with do not. They are involved and enjoy the process, so the game does not slow down during the maneuvering board phase.

The game uses written orders. Orders are written simultaneously, so there is no "dead period" where your opponent is writing orders. It is also timed, so you tend to take the whole time to think. Other written orders mechanisms may be slow.

But sometimes both players are done early and you just cut the phase short. Likewise, when ships are far apart, there will be no interesting interactions during the micro phases. So we just execute the whole thing in one slop instead of piecewise and checking things against other ships. We will even to this regionally, such as four ships on the outside slopping a whole turn and the two in close quarters doing the full piecewise movement.

The rules do not actually say "if you are obviously two feet apart, you don't have to measure to see if you are within 12 or 9 inches." or "if you're passing astern of a ship without a stern gun, you don't need to measure for that ship's engagement zone" or a thousand other things.

The rules have lots of steps between decisions. No value added steps are easily breezed through (not skipped – everyone at the table has already "measured" distances and angles in their head with their eye) during play.

Because of these factors, any given game session may have lots of shooting and boarding, lots of cat an mouse maneuver, or any mix in between. These instances run at different objective speeds and reach different points in the scenario when the bell rings. But in terms of play, none are slow.

A game with fewer intense turns may be "faster" than one with a larger number of less exciting ones.

There's simply more to game speed than rules (and the other game artifacts like scenarios, stats, objectives, etc.).

I feel like I've been asked "Advise me on what kind of car I should buy" without being told anything about you as a person and what you will do with the car.

@Extra Crispy:

Relatedly, rolling (possibly buckets repeatedly) first to determine how much damage is inflicted, then rolling again to see how much that impacted morale.

For battle-scale rules, there's probably little reason to differentiate between physical and psychological damage at all. For more zoomed in rules, you can still assign both with a single die roll.

@Robert:

I guess we can add "poorly laid out charts / QRS" to the list. I usually end up making my own charts as many are obsessed with one page, rather than speedy play.

@Conformist: Grande Armee does that. A unit has strength points which are an overall measure of casualties, morale, fatigue etc. When you get to 0 you have broken. So morale tests are rare and combat is fast.

A point EC. Remember I am a survivor of the chart-happy 1970's, where figuring out which chart to roll on could be a serious issue.

eto, let me try again. Much of my wargaming involves arriving at a friend's house with troops and terrain at 11:00 AM. Terrain must be set up, battle fought and everything put away prior to 3:00 PM. Elapsed time is not subjective. Neither, for either of us, is a decision. One of us will or will not have achieved a specified victory condition prior to putting the troops away. We do this for between 7 and 18 afternoons fall, winter and early spring, change armies and rules over the summer and try something else. Obviously we could meet our time and decision constraints every time with a basic DBA battle, but neither of us are altogether satisfied with that. So I have to find or devise a different set of rules every year, and I'm using TMP here to scan for booby traps--the rule mechanics which slow down play. EC has a good point about multiple die rolls for combat resolution: rolling once for hits, once for saves and a third time for morale gives you no more decisions points than rolling once and consulting a chart which yields the same result. I suffer from a mild case of chartophobia, but his point is still valid. Can you suggest any mechanisms which you feel tend to slow down resolution without adding interest?

The OP asked for slowing things 'other than the players' but it is the players' and their decision making that absorbs play time.

I tell the story of a game at a mate's place where a non-gaming person called by for some reason, and watched our game for a bit.

Now this visitor was a commercial radio exec in a capital city market, and knew the value of 15 seconds of airtime and how much to charge you for it.

He instinctively knew or quickly observed that it was all the choices of where and when to move the figs that must consume time.

Rolling dice or moving figs does not waste time, this _is_ the game – it's players dithering over moves and options that is dead time.

Which sets up a conundrum – games with a lot of interesting decision points are often the most enjoyable.

To get back to the OP's point – if the rules lend themselves to 'analysis-paralysis' ie players doing complex sums in their head before making a choice you have a system that prompts slow play.

As others have pointed out, multi-step computations and long lists of factors to check, on a QRS or in the book, itself are things that might be streamlined to help speed play.

I like to think that game designers should start by fixing game-time as their first parameter, is this going to be a 1, 2, 3, 4 hour game, and work from there. So things like the number of moving bits, table size, speed of getting to a result / victory can slot into place after this first consideration of game time.

Now back in the real world, game designers have to ask how many figs / units do I realistically expect the players to have and want to play with.

If your games needs 30,000 figs per side it's unlikely to find players, if you're doing waterloo with 4 Brit 15mm figs, 2 allies, 4 Prussians vs 9 French figs it will be an unfulfilling game for many players.

Other people have commented on game mechanisms that don't actually do much to advance a game.

Some systems have a detailed and interactive terrain generating system that allows both players to influence the outcome as the build the battlefield. These can be an interesting part of the interaction between the players as they jockey for tactical advantage.

But they also take time – maybe a quicker system to get to the same end point would be players being dealt say 6 cards from a deck that correspond each to a table 1/4 and have a battle map on them. They play a card each in turns – so you get to the end point of both random and player-influenced terrain with a simple process.

Another time sink are early bounds in a game where forces are too far apart to interact.

I've seen plenty of games where an hour of game time is exhausted, perhaps over multiple turns, as players drive their armies to where they were always going to end up and clash with the enemy.

There are various possible fixes depending on your rule mechanisms – but anything that gets forces to or starts armies at the critical position earlier is a good thing.

Finally, because this post is already getting long, is game end conditions.

How does a game end – timed out games are rarely enjoyable.

If your game is designed for 3 hours, there's nothing wrong with a blundering or unlucky player being defeated in 1.5 hours if there is a victory condition for it and both side have enough decision points to make it feel like something other than a penalty shoot-out.

Regards

David F Brown

OP: What time is it?

The rest of us: Well, first you need to make the steel to build a watch case. Then you need to design an attractive watch face. Oh, and you need some springs and jewels for the timekeeping mechanism, and so forth…

OK so what take up most time is sbjective but heres mine.

1) Rules mechanisms that are unweildy, Buckets of die, long check lists, sorting out markers, (TIP bit of card with dry wipe surface far faster than sorting pre printed markers out). Lack of a "March Move" We have oue own but DBM is a good exemplar.
2) Players that have no knowledge of the rules or the tactics of the period. Being a perpetual begginer to me personally shows a lack of interest and typicaly more intested in the figures. Not a good start to a decent game.
3) Players too interested in chatting than playing a major down to a good game and a VERY slow boreing game.
4) Setting the senario to match the players, decision time can and sometimes should be high, too high for the players and it makes a poor game as their thinking time fall into an inability to make a decission slowing the play.
5) Not victtory conditions, we play till the fun is at an end. When one has come to a sensible end, no more fun. Like chess resignation, it is acceptable when it degenerates into a simple mindlss slog. Unique and rare random factors occuring late to me take away from a game not add to it. They can hoever be a plague on speed of play so should be avoided as part of item 1.

You're too harsh, pzivh43. I'm getting useful stuff out of this. It's interesting what interpretations are placed on my words, sometimes, though.

evilgong, UshCha, the focus on "other than the players" is because the players are the part I can't change at conventions and won't change in regular friendly play. Of course they're important, but they're outside my control. I want to focus on things I can improve. Fully agree about timed-out games. My concern with game speed is to ensure we can play a turn limit game to a conclusion.

UshCha, I'm half in agreement with 5, but only half. Military commanders have objectives, and this is how success is measured. Ideally game conditions reflect this. But stopping the game once it's obvious which side will achieve its objectives is just good play--and may allow time for a rematch.

Fighting to the death. A lot of time can be spent fighting past the point of reason. My rules include tracking casualties and disordered units along with objectives. If one army reaches a certain percentage of loses and damaged units – a percentage based on its number of units, fighting qualities, and historical context, before reaching its objective, the game is over. There are never a set number of turns, but these games go faster and the end seems logical.

In general terms, anything which requires lots of looking things up, long lists of dice modifiers, faffing around with loads of dice, physical manipulation of the figures and associated markers, multiple random steps to get to a combat result (like randomised spotting).

I specific terms, for a time limited multi player convention game: avoid unit at a time activation systems, avoid anything where you can't fit a QRS onto one side of A4, make sure the players have enough equipment (dice, rulers, play sheets), keep it as simple as possible, and avoid anything where you have worry about fiddling around with lots of individual elements. You will get plenty of friction from having lots of players. Ideally playtest your game beforehand to make sure you can get through it in a reasonable time.

I didn't say time was subjective. I said the concept of slow was.

Speed is events over time. You've said the only event you care about is completion of at least one victory condition. It's not rules, but this seems to lead to scenarios with continuous victory conditions or larger numbers of discrete ones. For a an ancients game (you reference DBA), we play a number of scenarios where holding different sectors of terrain earn points per turn. We usually use tokens (poker chips) rather than writing it down. Throw a few chips in your bowl at the end of your turn, and count at the end. You have a general idea of how you are doing, but if it is close, you don't really know. Generally you make zones progressively worth more the closer to the opponent's side you are. So if you drive an opponent back, they could still win, but it is not likely. This is a reasonably low overhead mechanism that simulates the PMESII victory of a force. There are tons of other ways to effect a similar mechanism for different scenario types.

Numbers of rolls must be deliberately designed/selected. You seemed to indicate that two rolls for damage is slow but one roll for damage and one for morale isn't. That said, for pure speed, rolling dice tends to be faster than calculating things for most people. In that sense, a mechanism that requires you tp look, count, and roll based on something (simple) you counted tends to be one of the lowest time options. However, the more randomness in a game, the less the players feel in control, so the series of rolls become "tedious" rather than engaging.

Opposed die rolls tend to be faster than charts. Using them effectively requires more pre-work, which is something I think would work in your case. The rules I use (QILS) encode combat capability on to the dice for opposed rolls. It replaces in game time, with outside game design time.

I'm not really a fan of charts. The rules I use don't have them. Well, if you have more than four or five types of terrain on the board, you should really write it down. Which leads to the consideration that most people can handle 3-7 concepts in their head, so if you design your rules for five stats, concepts, values, order types, etc. play can go fast and not require writing a bunch down or looking up things in a reference book.

People's ability to handle multiple concepts is augmented by past familiarity. So, if both players (two in yoru case? seems to be, but not sure) have a common "historical" knowledge of the milieu (including a fictional one), you can leverage that in the design.

Those are design principles, not specific mechanisms. I still assert that any particular mechanism can be "fast" or "slow" depending on the context. If you provide more about the context you want, or tell me where I drew incorrect conclusions about your context, I can provide more specific info.

Much of my wargaming involves arriving at a friend's house with troops and terrain at 11:00 AM. Terrain must be set up, battle fought and everything put away prior to 3:00 PM.

This is very common, especially if you play at clubs. 4 hours from soup to nuts, as my American comrades would say, is what you need to aim for. The exception is if you have the ability to keep a game setup over several days, or even weeks. In those cases longer games are viable, but are not the norm.
The other critical factor is you need a clear result in that time frame, playing for 3 ˝ hours and then, irrespective of the state of the game, calling it quits and packing up without a result is not sustainable or satisfying.

I am getting the impression what you are looking for is optimal game systems rather than game system aspects which can delay the game. This is a complex topic, I created a series of videos on game systems which cover many of these: youtu.be/fijr6z7lpd8

A quick list of optimal game systems rules are as follows;

Sequence of play: All non-core functions are moved to either a pre-phase or post-phase.
- Orders, Communications, command, reinforcement determination, weather determination, supply, unsighted indirect fire, and air support should all be placed in a separate "Pre-Phase". These do not occur every game turn and can be unrelated to the core Movement and combat of your combat forces.
- Victory determination, demoralisation, route recovery, unit recovery, disorder removal can all be placed in a "Post-Phase" for the same reasons as above.
- Keep the sequence of play as simple as possible. Combined movement and Combat, while a good game system, can cause issues if not well designed.

Vertical executing of movement and combat rather than horizontal execution.
- Pick a number of units and ensure they complete everything required in the phase before moving to a new group of units. This is a vertical approach. A horizontal approach is one where, within a single phase you need to go from flank to opposing flank doing something and then coming back to execute the next horizontal function. This is less of an issue when you divide movement and combat, but when using a combined movement and combat phase is very important.

Ability to understand an elements movement and combat characteristics by looking at the element.
- Movement rates and combat values need to be kept as simple as possible. A cheat sheet can be used in some cases, but if the cheat sheet contains too much information you still have an issue.

Minimal number of "Die Throws".
- You can throw a lot of die in a single throw, but throwing a lot of die, one at a time, is boring and physically exhausting. This varies by game system, but an optimal number of "units" per side is 24. A unit can comprise of more than one element. A good game system should never allow a player to throw more than 1/3 this number per player turn, but this does vary. An example of a bad game system is if you have 24 units and need to throw once per unit per game-turn with an optimal length of 12 game-turns, a player is required to throw a dice, or more than one dice, 288 times in a game. This can cause RSI and needs to be avoided.

Game system features which can cause drag on a game. (I have not repeated the ones already listed).
- Routing units should be avoided if possible. Its easier to remove the unit and provide some mechanism to allow them to return if they rally.
- Casualty tracking of a unit or element by the use of a counter, sheet, or writing down the element. IN some cases its unavoidable, but it's a real drag on any game.
- Tracking disorder, disruption, recoil, rout by the use of counters. Once again this may be unavoidable, but is a drag on any game.

Sorry, I'd completely missed that you were playing one on one. 11 to 3 sounds like luxury! For a club night we get down there at 6.45 and are usually done and packed up by 9 (9.30 at the latest).

For a four 1:1 game, then avoid fiddly terrain setups, but knock yourself out as far as interactive turn sequences go. They are only a problem for multi player.

Actually, we usually spin the table so 11-3 represents two games, but only one set-up and takedown. But note that a lot of this applies to convention games as well, and I've seen more games than I can count crash and burn because the clock ran out.

In the end its down to the players. Last Monday at the club, 2 games, Myself and friend doing a 1/144 game at 1mm to the meter. British Platoon in defense with two dedicated FV432 Mortar carriers vs the Russians with a full BMP 2 company with weapons section. We played to a suitable finish despite a late start probably 12 bounds which compared to the standard 6" and 12" Feartherstone clone is about 24 bounds..

Before hand set two of our guys up with a very simple game same rules and they got nowhere. How come? We basically got on with it. The other two chatted, discussed tactics and the real world weapons, digressed on models and had a generally good night. They play a social game and care not if they finish if they have had fun and pushed a few models about. So was there game slow? Well I thought so but they knew they were not getting there very fast but enjoying it and had no intention of going faster and curtailing their fun.

So what constitutes a Slow game is by no means a universal. I may think a game is very slow but others may consider it was plenty fast enough. I have seen folk define the ultimate game as having a laugh with mates. That to me is not an ultimate war game, some other game like Dominoes yes. To me the ultimate game is fast, that means not only streamlined fast implementation but players concentrating solely on the task in hand and getting on with it. That is by no means a universal situation. The problem comes if players from the opposite side meet. Then one considers the game far too slow the other too much rushing and no time to chat.

There is no fix for this as its not the rules but the overall goals of the players that are at odds.

Sorry for the necromancy…
There are mechanisms that take more time to implement. However its about whether the process is enjoyable and feels like it moves the game forwards rather than just feel like a chore.
Anything we do in the game should aim to be easy to remember, intuitive, applying them should add to the game by being fun and or immersive.

We can't then decide how to make the mechanisms quicker to apply. Increase game tempo and also chose mechanisms that increase olayer engagement so they are havjng more "fun" which is where time flies.

The other issue is rule concepts, our own games are designed to be "chess matches". You are required to be on top of the game, your move distances are task oriented so they can be the equivant of several "conventional" game moves so could be considered faster. However that really can massively reduce rate of play if the players cannot (or don't want) that level of demand. It can results in "Analasis Paralasis" too many options. Now to me too many options is impossible, but not all folk see it that way. A game between players who are familiar with the rules may be able to cope with "slow" mechanisms in many cases without issue or indeed being slow. Guys just turning up are not in that position.

Stange to me being in the UK (or just where and who I play) multi player games are uncommon. In many cases multi player games are hampered by players of mixed ability, knowledge of the period and rules. Here mechanisms that are perhaps realistic but not neccessarily "slow" will slow thwm down if you need to explain tactics even before you start on the rules.

So slow mechanisms may really be about both the rules and the Context, if you have no understanding on how to say use a smaoke screen you need to explain that even before you cover the rules.

On that, my pet hates may be just that, the mechaisms may not be slow to the familiar. To the unfamiliar the rules need perhaps oversimplified context as well as fast mechanisms. So slow mechanisms my be more about the players familiarity than the actual rules in some but not all instances.

I'd prefer a game where I felt I was on the role… not being everything from top to bottom in the action were fighting.
We play games the way we do becuse that's what we play.we use the mechanisms we use becuae we always have use element like numeric dice.. because.. we ll you get it and most of the time when a new game comes out it tends to be just a variant on how to use an old idea.
I think though thar the a abstractions we have to make something for in to a mechanism that can be managed.. normally by dice charts etc creates a learning curve, a lack of Immersion and intuitive means that the uninitiated will place demands on those who know and slow things down as they learn.. and that's just the rules.
That's why I've liked rules like crossfire or wolfhags tank game.

I've used things like limited turn times. So players don't have time so plot plan. They have x amount of time.. so they may get flustered. Combine that with some form or randomised activation so players have to be on the ball and pay attention otherwise they'll run out of time.

A timer and having to move units of individual figures meant you didn't have to worry about movement rates and how thag affects formation.. becuae people had to decide do I do small movemrns and keep trop in close or longer movements and en d looser spaced and possibly running out of time moving figures.

And I've had some of my most fun games in battles of huge numbers of figures where all combat was resolved 1 fugure at a time with opposed d6 rolls.

I've always been mind ful even before I heard it described as such… of fidelity and resolution. I'd rather have low resolution and higher fidelity especially if it speeds up play.

If we are talking about slow as in requiring more time, apart from what others have rightly noted including unique or new rules, there is the relationship between administrative and decision mechanics and subsystems.

Administrative actions are those with resolve decisions. Detailed games tend to have more administrative requirements for resolving each decision or require many small decisions to determine a single resolution. for instance, resolving a combat event. I just played the board game "Longstreet's Attack," which has a complicated combat resolution process including two die rolls and four separate results to be determined for combat in a single hex. That doesn't make it a 'bad' game, but it does slow down play quite a bit. Game which has one decision with one die roll and a simple CRT or process for resolution would be faster.

ALL games create a learning curve, learning the rules and then learning the game. I've played scores of the boardgame
For the People and am still learning the game.
That's what makes it a long-lasting game: Optimum moves can't be easily discovered or have many avenues for a win.

As Raph Koster writes in A Theory of Fun for Game Design: page 34:

Games are puzzles to be solved, just like everything else we encounter in life. They are on the same order as learning to drive a car, or picking up the mandolin, or learning your multiplications tables. We learn the underlying patterns, grok them fully, and file then away so that can be rerun as needed. The only real difference between games and reality is that the stakes are lower in games.

Games are something special and unique. They are concentrated chunks ready for our brains to chew on. Since they are abstracted and iconic, they are readily absorbed. Since they are formal systems, they exclude distracting extra details. Usually, our brains have to do hard work to turn messy reality into something as clear as a game is.

If the game is messy, includes those extra details, or provides few game decisions to 'grok' compared to referencing charts and die rolls, folks will move on to 'clearer' games. As gamers have noted playing some games, "It's like doing my income taxes and as much fun."

Certainly there are at least some approaches to war gaming that are different to other sports. You would not expect to have beginners in a serious a mature game yet in this thread that seems to be the norm, the logic for this escapes me.

Detail and what is required is in the eye of the beholder. You would expect low detail simple rules for learners who have yet to study thre chosen period. Such games are likely to be far to superficial and crude to keep the serious player entertained. To unsubtle decisions are fine for learners but lack depth for the keen player. Mechanisms are there to support that not control it. To me some games seem to sell on mechanisms that are slightly different as an end, not so much on improvement of the simulation itself. Why would a mini card game inside some basic rules improve the simulstion for instance.

UshCha:

I agree, all true. I was simply pointing out some of what slows down a game, not whether someone should like it or not. Simple games are fair easier to 'get into' or 'grok', so it is little wonder more folks engage in those.

I enjoy both simple and complex games for different reasons, depending on the quality, which includes simulation quality.

In my opinion, what slows the game down the most are the actions, rules, and abstracted non-military game mechanics to determine in what order the action will occur, how many actions a unit may have, and how to parse the action of the units within a game turn randomly or by player choice. You won't find many of them in military training manuals or doctrine.

Yes, I understand it's a game but ideally, a real squad leader should be able to recognize the rules and mechanics. Some games do this better than others. For him, these abstractions would slow down the game, and more importantly, he would not be able to function as he did in the military or in combat.

At a convention, I was observing a tank battle where a player moved a unit that started out of the LOS from the enemy, into the enemy frontal LOS, flanked, shot, and killed the defender without the defender being able to take action or react. The defending player was a former tank commander and as politely as he could left the game even though he had more units. Everyone else seemed to be on board with the game. Maybe he's a poor loser or the game did not meet his expectations and went searching for another game.

Also in most IGYG multi-player games, the players are observers and not able to interact because it is not their "turn" to do something. Many games have additional abstracted rules to overcome this. To the observers, this slows down the game. However, that "dead time" is normally filled with discussions, social interactions, sharing painting techniques, historical anecdotes, etc. between the players, and is something not to be overlooked regarding the enjoyment of the game.

A highly abstract set of rules with excellent visual effects and players familiar with the period or battle can be a very enjoyable experience even if it is slow play and not very historic. However, there may be other players thinking or muttering, "this sucks", "that never happened", "that's not fair", etc. I've met many players that like rolling handfuls of dice.

Like etotheipi said, "slow is subjective." If the players are involved in activities that are fun, and enjoyable while meeting their level of realism and expectation then the game is not slow for them. For others, it's a chance to cruise the internet on their phone. From my experience, I've found many players want simple and abstract rules to move around as many of their toys in the time allotted to them like at a convention or in a store.

Games should be judged on what the game designer's intent is. If a game is designed to be like a "chess match" and it plays out like that then the designer's intent is accomplished even if you think there is a better way.

Like McLaddie said, "games are puzzles" and stimulate our minds and competitive nature and should provide a high level of entertainment. I agree. Having been in the military most of the games I've seen and played are too "gamey" and abstracted and don't create for me the level of realism that I'd like. Also, for me the visuals are secondary so I'm probably a very small minority in the miniatures world.

Simultaneous Movement: If done right it speeds up the game and does not need plotted movement or the use of written orders. With IGYG if it takes one player one minute to move his units then it takes 5 players 5 minutes for each turn. Ideally, all players move their units at the same time without cheating taking only one minute. Also, if done right it could eliminate the complicated opportunity fire rules many games have which in most games takes up even more time.

Simultaneous small arms fire results (measured by the volume of fire from each unit, not individual figures shooting) greatly speeds up the game. Using modified binomial combat results speeds up the game and eliminates the "handful of dice effects" and multiple die rolls for small arms and multi-round/automatic direct fire. I know because it's what I use.

In the last 50 years with hundreds of different game designs and rules, you'd think that someone would have come up with some type of "universal system" that the majority of players would buy into and it would stand the test of time. It does not appear we are even close to that.

Wolfhag

I agree with you there wolfhag..
I play wargames.. not because I want to solve the puzzle of the game or its rules. I want to solves the puzzle of bejng in the place the game puts me… leading a squad brigade tank etc.
The rules should, for me quick enough to learn and apply that they don't take longer than the decisions the role I'm representing would take to make and Carey out.. or to be as close as possible.
For me the game should not be about maximising my ability to play the rules but did I make better decisions. Read my opponent predict my own troops responses and the enemies.
So for me Im general aiming to remove things thag slow play down with details irrelevant to the role I put the players in and anything thag means the focus is on reolves rules or mechanics rather than delivering outcomes thag would affect the roles decisions.
But we all play our games for own reasons.
Of course 😉

"simultaneous movement, with associated written orders"

The rules I used with simultaneous movement were done with order chits. I won't play a game with written-down orders.

Gamesman6,

The rules should, for me quick enough to learn and apply that they don't take longer than the decisions the role I'm representing would take to make and Carey out.. or to be as close as possible.

Ideally, if you are a prior military or very familiar with the real tactics you should already know how to play the game. The rules should enable you to make the same decisions and the game mechanics a realistic way to portray the execution. Enemy action, tactics, decisions, suppression, friction, your troop quality, and SNAFU's would degrade your effectiveness because not everything goes as planned. Some games do that better than others.

In the military, we train over and over again to execute orders and tactics as quickly as possible. Tank crews spend hours training to engage and shoot as quickly as possible and balance the speed versus accuracy dilemma to shoot first. Sherman crews were trained to engage a new target 45 degrees off and shoot within 15 seconds or quicker. The right historical tactics should allow you to get off the first shot, not a die roll.

Infantry units train to automatically respond to enemy encounters without being ordered to do so and leaders are expected to use some personal initiative. Units are almost always under some standing order or responsibility and don't need to be "activated."

If a unit is ordered to move from point A to point B it should be attempting to carry out the order without being given an order or activated every turn. It should have the option to move out of the command & control range with a penalty of not being able to receive new orders or change the current one or report back to HQ. They'd use their own initiative. If it runs into the enemy it should be able to react accordingly and not just sit there doing nothing or waiting for an order or to be activated.

Quickness and execution are about timing, not a "chance" to execute an order in a fixed amount of time in a game turn. If you have a game turn of 60 seconds but are not using historical timing for order execution your only course of action is to develop a set of abstracted rules, die roll modifiers, etc. to parse the action and determine initiative in a playable manner. Since it's hard to get it to portray real action on the battlefield it comes down to how much it "feels right" to the players and their preferences for IGYG, unit random or player-selected unit activation, command dice, chit draw, card building, etc.

You could say that these necessary abstractions are designed to "fool" the player into thinking there is some level of realism. I think these abstractions are necessary because only a small minority of players have combined arms military experience or know how to use real tactics and I'm no expert either.

When I was 16 I thought PanzerBlitz was the best game ever. After 3 years in the infantry (VN era with basically WWII TO&E and tactics including flamethrowers) and reading and researching the information that has become available in the last 20 years it has become harder to "fool" me or maybe I just lack the imagination to buy into the popular games being played today.

If you were going to design a multi-million dollar tank simulator for the military you would not base it on any of the rule systems available today. I think if someone were able to convert a realistic computer simulation that uses the timing of actions, orders, real weapon rates of fire, players' option to trade accuracy for speed, etc. based on historical values into a playable miniature or board game would have the potential to speed up the game by eliminating all of the artificial and abstracted game rules. It would require some record-keeping so that would be a no-go for many players.

Wolfhag

Yep… I think there are ways to make a game of a simulation…or more.simulation like experience.

I know that's not for everybody. For many people they like playing games and like rules a nd solving the puzzle of the rules. But that seems to me and to you from what I've read slowing the experience dow.
Also I don't think players need to know the period too much the structure of the interface should prep them to a degree. Then the waynyou solve the game is by being better at solving the problem of the mission, or better a commanding the forces you are.
I think to a degree electronic games do this better. After all the mechanical rules are hidden from view. Leaving the player to solve the thing being modeled. Now whether they do that successfully or accurately is something else but they tend to ward simplifying and speeding up the players experience. I think there are a number of ways to speed up play…but they require moving beyond a lot of the gamey ways watgames have traditionally been designed and played.

In the last 50 years with hundreds of different game designs and rules, you'd think that someone would have come up with some type of "universal system"

It's interesting that you say this because you very clearly articulate the reasons why it isn't possible.

Since there is no one thing players universally want from a game, there is no one approach for universally giving players what they want.

I think there are ways to make a game of a simulation…or more.simulation like experience.

A wargame is a simulation. A simulation is simply a model executed dynamically (usually over time). All wargames model some things – units, terrain, engagement, etc. And, as Wolfhag describes, a wargame is about decision, that is taking those models and executing your decisions to see where the outcomes lead.

I second Etotheipi's comments above. Here is how Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman describe this game/simulation relationship in Rules of Play: Game Design Fundementals MIT Press 2004 p. 457

A simulation is a procedural representation of aspects of "reality." Simulations present procedurally and they have a special relationship to "reality" that they represent.

There are many kinds of simulations that are not games. However, all games can be understood as simulations, even very abstract games or games that simulate phenomena not found in the real world.

Because all games are artificial environments with their own rules, just as all simulations are, they can use the same types of methods and paraphernalia to create those environments.

Sid Meier of Civilization and Pirates! fame said that "Games are a series of interesting decisions."

A historical wargame or simulation is a series of historically interesting decisions.

For too many wargame designers, they spend more time trying to populate the wargame environments with historical details or clever mechanics to make them 'look' more 'real' or forcing historical events, instead of focusing on the decisions, the real challenges actually faced by historical commanders.

A good example is the 'Command Points' mechanic. Each side has so many CPs per turn, usually unable to move everyone, so players have to decide which formations get to move and fight. This can slow down the game. Lots of rationales are provided for the admittedly fun mechanism, such as pointing out that there are times [how many?] where units don't obey orders, thus creating supposedly historical events. What it has to do with historical command dynamics and subsequent command decisions are left wanting.

However, if you look at actual command dynamics in most wars, the actual commander gives out his commands and THEN finds out who does and doesn't follow orders. Any such order requires the same effort as any other order--for the most part.

It has already been pointed out, whether games are fast or slow is a matter of opinion, influenced by what players want from their game experience. This is a wargame design issue and not specifically or even generally a simulation or wargame issue.

I like the word reality being in quotes, because I am not a fan of the word reality or realism with respect to simulations or wargames. When people use the word reality in the context of simulations, they tend to frame reality as a single, objective thing that could be completely represented in the math if we just did it right.

Reality is not such a thing. And the gross, overwhelming part of the time we don't want to represent reality. We want to represent is a hypothetical reality – a mix of what is or was with a measure of what could, should or would be.

With that, still we have the issue of completeness. Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem tells us that if the system we use to describe the models is consistent (always gives the same answer under the same set of conditions), then it cannot be complete, that is there are parts of the state space it cannot reach. The system we use for our models can, and necessarily is, complete for a well-defined subset of the thing being represented.

Thus, the imperative to select the purpose of the wargame, the well-defined list of things to model.

You could say that the hypothetical bit is a kind of reality, but I don't think that's what most people think or hear when you say "reality". I prefer to say we model against a referent. This idea also helps sort out what is objective and what is subjective about the wargame. The model and the bits of reality and hypotheticals are the objective part while the selection of what to model and the criteria for good enough are the subjective parts.

If you want to write a good wargame, keeping the objective and subjective parts clear helps because they are best handled with different tools and technicques.

Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem – Clearly the guy got his knikers in a twist. I have yet to see gravity not work so a simulation of I drop it so it falls is by definition (always gives the same answer under the same set of conditions) can be correct. There may be SOME istances where pracrticaly repatition may not always give the same answer but if that is outside the system thrn it may never have been part of the simulation. Stress analysis models give consistant answeres and should do. They do not nor should they count for human factots so he is wrong again if he is looking at a diffrent part of the universe then maybe its a valid commeny. Tanks always run out of fuel eventually.

Also I don't think players need to know the period too much the structure of the interface should prep them to a degree. Then the wayn you solve the game is by being better at solving the problem of the mission, or better a commanding the forces you are.

I have to disagree, Rules control what happens they do not tell you what to do. To0 many rules seem to me, to tell players what to do and then resolve it.

Rules should be like an airplane, if you don't know what button to press its not a fault of the designers its how it should be. The players needs to undertand what they need to do outside of the simulation as much as possible. Rules are an excecution system, not a direct training aid, if it were a training aid as well it would slow execution down with the training add on's so would be slower, always a bad attribute.

I have yet to see gravity not work … Tanks always run out of fuel eventually.

That paragraph completely misses the point of GIT. Everything you list is an example of consistency, which is assumed.

GIT says (among other things not germane to this discussion) that "you can't model everything" is not just a practical limit, but a hard limit based on the nature of mathematics. It also says that if you pick a well-defined set of things to model, you can model "everything" from that. There still may be a practical limit.

There are a dozen other logical flaws in your response, but "I have yet to see" you actually respond to what someone says instead of a strawman, so my model of your behaviour indicates low value of pointing them out.

if you don't know what button to press its not a fault of the designers

This is the belief of you and every interface designer who has produced a pile of crap that people can't use. Fortunately, it is not the belief of (most) people who design airplanes. PDF link But maybe, sometimes it is. link

Inability to use a thing designed by someone else is a collaborative space. It is neither wholly owned by the user or the designer, though some specific issues may be one way or the other.

Also, the point in the bit you quoted is not that the rules should "train" you about the period (they will), but that the rules incorporate some parts of the historical background, so you don't have to know that as it is not part of your decision space.

You don't have to understand the whole political, operational, and logistic history behind why your tank may run out of gas during an engagement; the rules will make that happen. Your decision space can react to that without historical understanding of why it is happening, just that it is happening.

You don't have to understand the whole political, operational, and logistic history behind why your tank may run out of gas during an engagement; the rules will make that happen. Your decision space can react to that without historical understanding of why it is happening, just that it is happening.

To take the aircraft example – If you don't know the stall speed of a aircraft and the stall warning is not switched on you will likely crash. The simulator will crash the aircraft but that is not useful. You need to learn the aircraft systems how they work. That in the main is not done in the simulator but in the classroom. You need to understand the limitations of a tank before you get into a simulator you waste a lot of time, faster to learn what is required outside the simulator. Rules are a simulator pure and simple, they are not and should not be a teaching aid.

To some extent you quoted paragraph above implies it is a sort of training aid, hence my response.

To some extent you quoted paragraph above implies it is a sort of training aid, hence my response.

Yes, the paragraph you wrote did imply training. But the one you were responding to had nothing to do with training.

The simulator will crash the aircraft but that is not useful. You need to learn the aircraft systems how they work. That in the main is not done in the simulator but in the classroom.

Most aircraft simulators don't actually implement a model of the systems of the aircraft. They implement the dynamics, which is a different thing. And that is what you learn. When I give this order, that is the response. Through repetition you begin to build heuristics on how various conditions relate to performance and performance trends over time.

Pilots no more watch (intermittently or not) the air speed gauge to avoid a stall than drivers watch the tachometer to know when to shift gears in a car.

Pilots do learn about aircraft systems and details of aircraft in training. They actually don't repeat all that training when shifting to a new type of aircraft with different systems. Again, the purpose of that learning is not to know all the details of everything and to analyze each one for every decision. The purpose is to start building the right high-level heuristics.

The same applies to military operations, whether in a wargame or in real life. You operate on heuristics and high-level understanding but not detailed analysis of all the details (especially the ones that aren't actually in the mechanics of the wargame).

Also, crashing is useful; it is one of the feedback mechanisms on performance. Not the only one.

To take the aircraft example – If you don't know the stall speed of a aircraft and the stall warning is not switched on you will likely crash. The simulator will crash the aircraft but that is not useful. You need to learn the aircraft systems how they work.

UshCha:
Most people, including pilots and soldiers learned by trial-and-error. That is how most tactics and knowledge of aero-dynamics were learned and then developed--by somebody. Only then was the knowledge passed down, any trial-and-error becoming less necessary. It certainly lessens the learning time but doesn't totally eliminate the trial-and-error.

If the player, dropped into a functional simulation/wargame, is willing to put in the time with trial and error, he will learn how to fly the plane or successful battlefield tactics. That is assuming that the game environment models reality. I've mentioned that I enjoy flight simulators and played them often. Then I got the chance to learn how to fly a sailplane. The first time up, the instructor gave me the stick and watching me fly, asked if I'd flown before.

Now, a simulator of a powered aircraft seen in a monitor is not the same as the cockpit of a real sailplane/glider in a million different ways, but the simulator was true to life in enough ways to give me skills that could be applied to the real thing. That's what functional simulations do: create game environments that behave like the real world in very specific ways.

The point being, one can play a wargame [A functional simulation] knowing beforehand all the requisite tactical and operational knowledge [which is what you want your players to be] OR the player can learn those skills and knowledge through playing the game, trial-and-error. [Fumbling around, something you don't seem have patience for--which is understandable, particularly with limited time.]

I crashed my simulation planes a number of times. I didn't with the real thing, to the instructor's relief. That's one of the powers of a simulation. It is a learning machine that has a concrete relationship to history and/or the real world.

I like the word reality being in quotes, because I am not a fan of the word reality or realism with respect to simulations or wargames. When people use the word reality in the context of simulations, they tend to frame reality as a single, objective thing that could be completely represented in the math if we just did it right.

etotheipi:

Well, the authors Kate and Eric, put the word Reality in quotes because designers can simulate things that don't exist, such as The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, or the traffic behavior on a freeway that doesn't exist yet, or the flight characteristics of a plane that is still on the drawing board, etc. etc. etc. etc.

As a wargame designer, to say that you are "not a fan of the word reality or realism with respect to simulations or wargames" is like saying a distiller isn't a fan of the words "Alcohol" or "Liquor" in respect to his bourbon. I'd say "Tough. Get over it"…Particularly if this is because 'they' come to incorrect conclusions about what simulations are or can do.

Reality is not such a thing. And the gross, overwhelming part of the time we don't want to represent reality. We want to represent is a hypothetical reality – a mix of what is or was with a measure of what could, should or would be.

Okay, so you've decided not to model reality, but instead something hypothetical or some mix of *something*. Fine. Again, that decision doesn't have anything to do with what simulation can and are usually designed to do: Model some aspect of reality. That is what most wargames are designed to do, according to their designers.

Obviously, parts of a simulation or wargames, the software, the mechanics, the dice etc. aren't the reality targeted. They are what is called 'scaffolding', those parts of the simulation/wargame process meant to support the simulation aspects.

I'm sorry, but simulations were created for specific purposes, one of which is to mimic reality. To not be a fan of that fact doesn't make sense at all, unless you don't see yourself designing simulations to model anything 'real.'

With that, still we have the issue of completeness. Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem tells us that if the system we use to describe the models is consistent (always gives the same answer under the same set of conditions), then it cannot be complete, that is there are parts of the state space it cannot reach.

No Simulation can do it all, nor will they ever be able to. Their entire value is the ability to be 'incomplete' visa vie reality, so just a part can be the focus. [such as a flight simulator] That part can be tested against reality to validate its effectiveness. That is true of wargames. As you say:

The system we use for our models can, and necessarily is, complete for a well-defined subset of the thing being represented.

are usually designed to do: Model some aspect of reality. That is what most wargames are designed to do, according to their designers.

So, if the designers you speak of are wrong, do I have to go along with them? This is a great illustration of the problem with the term.

When I say hypothetical reality, I don't mean a fictional milieu, like the ones you mention. I mean the hypothetical reality of what can happen vice what is known to have happened.

Any historical wargame that models reality is a 3D movie with the players making no decisions. The actions taken in the historical event are a part of reality, so if you're modeling reality, you're modeling just those actions and nothing else. And, in fact, you're modeling just the parts that we have evidence for, and not the "in between bits". But that is not what we do.

The overwhelming majority of military analysis wargames model "what would happen if..?", not what has been shown to happen. That is the value of the model – to show relationships among possibilities, not among realities.

The overwhelming majority of military training models focus on artificially constructed hypotheticals. If naval firefighting training focused on the reality of fires on ships at sea, most trainees would sit around, do other things, and never see, let alone fight a fire. We create a referent we never expect to happen in order to train against the hardest problems in the relevant space and get the most value out of the training.

We could go on, but essentially if there's only reality in a simulation, there is no game in it, so no wargame.

Why make this distinction? Primarily because the mathematical tools we use to manipulate empirical data and hypothetical data are different. When we cross-mix the different tools and data types, we get garbage. The big problem with this garbage is that in the small doses that we tend to verify and validate, it doesn't stink that much and isn't especially toxic. However, when we look across the entire scope of the wargame, we get a festering pile of detritus of little use for its intended purpose.

This is important for understanding one of the big myths of wargaming, "It's all made up anyway, so it's just fantasy." Understanding that there are bits of reality, which require certain tools to manipulate and hypotheticals, which require different tools is the first step to understanding that if information (like the outcome of a wargame) is hypothetical vice real, it can still have value when applied back to reality.

=====

Their entire value is the ability to be 'incomplete' visa vie reality, so just a part can be the focus.

While focus is important (I address it above), it is not relevant to the discussion of Gödelian incompleteness. Incompleteness is a fundamental property expressing a limit of the mathematics we use to construct models. It takes a specific set of tools to understand how and where it is relevant and how or even if to mitigate the effects of the limitation.

Gödelian incompleteness – so where does this fit in?

A stress model is a model, it reflects reality and it is of necessity and desig not a complete model of the universe. It reflects typical responces and so is usefull and by definition always gives repeatable answeres.

A wargame may similarly reflect modeling of a restricted bit of reality, in my own rules I recognise some bits of the unicveres have not been models nor was the model intended to refect such implications. Threfore if my model does not include breakbows of vehicales by other means than enemy fire it is not incomplete, it is defining what is and is not within its scope.

Our moral rules are not claimed to be a perfect representation, again no such intent was aever concived. Thesfore my model in not incomplet, but that does not mean it is not usefull. No different to a stess analysis model it had defined limits so is not in any way incomplete.
If I clasimed it modelled reality in the full it would be an absurd claim and patently not true and would be by that definition incomplete.

It may be that we have diffrent objectives and definitions in our own mindes what consitutes a useful model.

Hi etotheipi and UschCha:

I would imagine Gödelian incompleteness theorem would fit into simulations design at the point where math is an integral part of designing a simulation. As the math of statistics and probability are integral parts of simulations, that would be the intersection. Just a thought.

When I say hypothetical reality, I don't mean a fictional milieu, like the ones you mention. I mean the hypothetical reality of what can happen vice what is known to have happened.

A lot of the 'hypothetical' as you define is just as real as anything that has happened, past tense. It is not hypothetical that if you jump off a three-story building, which you've never done before, your trajectory and the results are known, not 'hypothetical' conclusions beforehand.

They haven't happened to you yet, but that doesn't make the outcome 'hypothetical.' It true for any simulation users or players in any functional wargame.

Any historical wargame that models reality is a 3D movie with the players making no decisions. The actions taken in the historical event are a part of reality, so if you're modeling reality, you're modeling just those actions and nothing else.

If you are creating past events, like a 3D movie, that is a "Static Simulation." Play the game 12 times and you will get the same events and therefore the same results 12 times. Static simulations create events.

The overwhelming majority of military analysis wargames model "what would happen if..?", not what has been shown to happen. That is the value of the model – to show relationships among possibilities, not among past realities.

Not so. a Dynamic Simulation, which allows the players/users to create the events are provided a real environment, BASED on past realities. A Dynamic Simulation recreates environments. That environment is based on a statistical analysis of what is possible and dynamically responsive within that world, that reality. A flight simulator is based on that construction: "What if's." What if I point my left wing at the ground? The environment will tell you what the expected outcome is, depending on your subsequent decisions. A wargame is no different if well-designed and validated, modeling a past battlefield environment.

I will admit that wargame designers, past and present, confuse and mix Static and Dynamic simulation approaches all the time, failing at both as a consequence.

Most simulations and wargames are Dynamic Simulations, models of environments where the player or user makes 'what if' decisions and sees what happens. "What if the plane has a greater drag?" "What if the proton has a heavier weight?" "What if the French army does a wide flank attack at Waterloo?" The environment is what a dynamic simulation has to model, its similarity to the real, past environments, not the past events or contemporaries' decisions.

Our moral rules are not claimed to be a perfect representation, again no such intent was ever conceived. Therefore my model in not incomplete, but that does not mean it is not useful.

Nothing is perfect. A perfect simulation of war would be an actual war… which sort of destroys all the reasons for creating a simulation of war. The question is whether your morale rules mimic, model, represent, copy the behaviors of the morale of actual units to "some" extent--and how you know they do?

The intent I would hope would be to approximation the historical morale behaviors exhibited in history or/and reality. The only way to do that is to do a statistical analysis of unit behavior concerning morale in the period you are modeling.

Is that 'incomplete?' Always. Of course, it's not perfect, but through testing, it can still be objectively approximate real behaviors. That is done all the time by simulators in a variety of arenas, and I am talking about group human behavior among others.

If you are 'conceiving' of doing something different, you aren't attempting to simulate anything of reality or history. That is a technical statement, not of opinion or a putdown, or philosophy or any other personal preference.

A model, by definition, is of *something else.* If it is a model of your opinions, wishes or desires, that is one thing. If it is a model of reality or history, that is something else entirely--requiring methodical comparisons. Either can be a simulation, only one is an attempt to simulate reality at some time, past or present.

Gödelian incompleteness – so where does this fit in?

Again, is points out that a model is only complete for a well-defined use case. So, the model is only useful for the things within that well defined use case.

By creating a model, you create an infinite number of well-defined use cases for which it is useful. It would be nice if the use case that you want to apply the model is within that set. Working backwards from infinity to the specific is an approach, but not a tractable one.

GI necessitates that if you want to have a useful model, you need to start with either (1) a well-defined use case, or (2) a lot of hope.