You also added the "unplayable" criterion as an alternative in your previous post. You said such a ruleset would be "vanilla" or "unplayable".
etotheipi:
I was giving my thoughts on game design 'limits.'
The sentence about unplayable was:
There is the content limit to play. At some point the amount of content/detail makes the game unplayable. One type of limit.
You know five books of rules, a nine map
Pacific War Games that are so big or rules heavy they become unplayable. All simulation designers recognize this content limit… too much and it doesn't work.
My concern about rules that span hundreds to thousands of years of warfare isn't that there is some content limit making them unplayable, though add enough parameters and that can be the case.
No, my point is this: To create a set of rules that span hundreds to thousands of years, must assume that there are common components between all the periods of warfare, components that are so central to warfare in all of them that a common set of rules can be historically viable--given some added or subtracted 'parameters.'
The risk, one I see realized in all the rules I have played or read, is that meaningful history is lost and a vanilla substitute is created. Meaningful being vital aspects of particular periods not found or dealt with in earlier or later history.
There is the Age of Eagles system taken from F&F, covering 1700 to 1918 with Age of Kings and Age of Valor. Lots of parameters.
Chris's Bloody Battles rule are now applied to the Napoleonic wars and WWI.
Ancient rules are often said to cover 2000 BC to 1300 AD
Would it be reasonable to suggest that one core rules set could cover WWI to the Ukraine War with some different parameters in just communication and Decision Cycle differences--not counting all the other distinct command challenges?
To insist it is possible is to assume there is some common core to warfare during this hundred and twenty years that allows the different types of warfare to be modeled.
I simply disagree: It isn't reasonable if one wants to be true to historical warfare…certainly not in the rule sets I have seen. That folks enjoy them is great, but what are they saying/teaching about history?
It is no accident that the less history there is to glean, such as ancients, the more willing designers are to ignore the history that is there.