Archive For The “Design” Category
Each week, our #DesignXDragoons panel will offer their thoughts on a talk about game design, game development, or gameplay. You’ll see what they have to say, and get a chance to chime in yourself, either in the comments below, or in our forums
This week’s question:
So on the real battlefield, you’ve got recon units and scouts and light cavalry that all play different (but similar) security roles in trying to identify enemy threats on the battlefield before you encounter them the hard way, and enable your forces to react appropriately to newly-detected threats.
On paper, you can get away with (a) violating doctrine, (b) chasing around anything that pops up, (c) ignoring the recon missions of these sorts of units and instead using them as highly-mobile, light combat units.
This skews force ratios from the historical battles, changes the information available to the participants, and introduces all sorts of battlefield wackiness.
What might a system look like that has a main body with a fixed objective, whose recon assets have some more flexibility of maneuver, but who cannot deviate from the base orders without ‘knowledge’ of what else is out there. So if the scouts don’t get high enough on the ridgeline to see the cavalry regiment hiding behind the hill, the corps main body never reacts to it.
How do you designate that route of march? The recon objectives? The triggers between the recon units looking for the enemy and the corps HQs reacting to reports of the enemy and issuing the changes in orders to change the movement?
What sayeth you? How do you keep scouting/recon units in their historical/doctrinal role? How do you limit the knowledge of the HQs such that the scouts are once again the “eyes and ears” of the command without resorting to a double-blind game?
(caveat: I have a Napoleonic frame of reference on this discussion, but it’s more broadly applicable with some changes in terminology)
Not that there’s really any need for it, but if you want it, here’s big map covering the Fort Irwin/NTC central corridor, and some of the southern corridor. Hexes are 1km across, and the contour lines are based on the original BayonetGames’ Warfighter system from the mid-’00s.
click image to really enlarge
Thanks for visiting the Armchair Dragoons!
We’d love to see your feedback in our discussion forum, or in the comment area below.
You can also find the regiment on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and occasionally at a convention near you.
Each week, our #DesignXDragoons panel will offer their thoughts on a talk about game design, game development, or gameplay. You’ll see what they have to say, and get a chance to chime in yourself, either in the comments below, or in our forums
This week’s question:
There’s area, point-to-point, hexes, and even squares. What type of map and movement systems works best for what type of game?
Give us your thoughts and examples.
Brant Guillory, 13 May 2020
Based on an older academic professional development seminar, here’s a recording of Brant’s discussion of uses of games & sims in the classroom, for training & learning purposes.
We’ve previously discussed some different facets of the games & sims discussion with both Brant and Dr Sterrett chiming in. We’d love to hear what you have to say, too.
We appreciate you visiting the Armchair Dragoons!
Please leave us your feedback in our discussion forum, or in the comment area below.
You can also find the regiment on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and occasionally at a convention near you.
Each week, our #DesignXDragoons panel will offer their thoughts on a talk about game design, game development, or gameplay. You’ll see what they have to say, and get a chance to chime in yourself, either in the comments below, or in our forums
This week’s question:
We have all seen (but never perpetrated wink, wink, nudge, nudge) gameplay that takes advantage of the rules in a game design that aren’t the most realistic ‘battlefield’ actions.
Examples might include abandoning the Peach Orchard at the Battle of Gettysburg or a spoiling attack by the US before the raid on Pearl Harbor.
What are some of the most egregious examples ‘gamey’ tactics that you have seen?
Are you willing to make at least concede a few loopholes in the rules name of convenient game-play?
Each week, our #DesignXDragoons panel will chime in with their thoughts on a talk about game design, game development, or gameplay. You’ll see what they have to say, and get a chance to chime in yourself, either in the comments below, or in our forums