Describe how you came to like modern units

[Redwolf]

Hi,

as you may know, I maintain a TacOps 4 for Combat Mission players review and tactics giude at

http://schlepper.hanse.de/redwolf/tacops-for-cmplayers.html

From feedback I found that the primary problem in getting new TacOps players is that many people interested in wargamers are either interested in WW2 only, or that they don't "like" modern units for a variety of other reasons.

If you got to like TacOps after starting from a WW2 wargamer background, please describe how exactly you got over the modern unit issue. I will use that to make my review more effective.

As always, any other feedback abouy the page above is welcome as well, in this thread or by direct mail.

Thanks!

[Binglesh]

I supose my active service time had something to do with an affinity for modern warfare.

"Charlie Battery, 75th AAA Missile battalion, Waldorf, Maryland, SIR!" - Nike-Ajax which when I mustered out in 1958, was about to become Hercules equipped. Radar fascinated me then and still does. Our definition of a poltergeist was " ..the thing that lives in the ACQ .." (ACQ = Acquisition radar, one of three for the Nike installations.)We were obsolete then and we knew it, the Nike installaitons are now long gone, though I used to see a mobile Nike-Ajax parked by the Illinois Nat'l Guard suburban Chicago ordnance depot. I suppose that too is long gone .

I know what you mean about wargaamers being mostly interested in WW2 - aside from flight sims it seems practically nothing but WW2. Why flight sims are different I don't know, but they are.

I've been a Steel Panther for some time - beta tester for the Watchtower (Guadacanal)Mega Campaign add-on and such. Starting with modern Soviet and U.S. OOB's for WAW done by another player, I have been improving and correcting the OOB's and tryng to get someone - anyone - interested in helping me playtest.

Did have one volunteer, who went the way most of them do after precisely one-half turn of a test scenario - on his behalf I will say he didn't use the old father-in-law-in-hospital routine, but he hasn't reported for work either.

The deeper I get into modern, the more I like it. Now that I have the time(retired)to do the research for modern I enjoy it all the more. I also fiddle with paper Harpoon, computer H3, BCT (never figured it out) and recently acquired JOhn Tiller's "Fulda Gap" - I had S&T Issue 82 at one time, the mag and rules survived but somehow the map and counters disappeared. Fascinating what-for with Fulda Gap - glad it never happened - but great possibilities for wargamers.

The test scenario I am currently working up for MOWAW (MOdern WAW) is nominally set just north of the gap, though I have no idea of the actual terrain. I've got a company each of M1A2's and Bradley infantry facing a company each of Guards T-90's and Guards mechanized (BMP-4's mind you). A-10's, Su-17's, Su-25's, Su-24's and gobs of artillery and anti-tank.

Different game than TacOps, not really in direct competition. MOWAW is a shooter on a wide scale, with provision for C&C, limited ammo, 2d icons and such, the basic SPWAW game continues to be absolutely free for the download - which happens to be about 400 Megs - there are fanatics who have done the d/l over 28K dialup.

I look forward to TacOps, even if I can't get full screen. I don't know why I shouldn't be able to get full screen, but I guess that is the way it is. MS Train Sim we have a registry hack to get close to full screen for the route editor, can't find a reg entry for TacOPs that would do this, though I might be looking in the wrong place (??). Some hack, some don't - I accept the risks and haven't yet blown out the OS.

I don't see where the units can be edited in TacOPs either, which will keep me involved with MOWAW because a lot of the fun is in this kind of creativity. Not easy in WAW, but it can be very satisfying. TacOPs strikes me as the kind of game where the users want to play and get at it with the least amount of fuss - that's fine and I don't mean to imply TacOps is beer and pretzels either. Surely it is not. I will play both.

Nice to be here, seems to be a polite and courteous bunch on this forum. Hope we can keep it that way.

Binglesh aka Bing

[Trooper]

I think part of the reason that moderns are a little less popular (I speak more as a miniatures gamer than PC), is because of the omnipotence of equipment.

"Oh look. There's a target vehicle 3km that way." 30 second later, it's dead due to a TOW or M829 or something. Even in naval games, it takes some of the fun out of it. "OK. My E-2 Hawkeye has just illuminated the entire game board..."

On initial sight, it may appear that tactics take second-seat to equipment in modern era games. Of course, it's not true, but the catch is that it appears that way.

NTM

[Binglesh]

You're right, Trooper - to a gamer who is used to hiding a Panzer behind a tree, modern seems to lack tactics. What the gamer doesn't realize is that a lock first of all might not hold - could be broken for all kinds of reasons. And second, just because I fire a missile doesn't automatically mean you are dead. Far from it, especially with AT missile defense systems such as Arena and maybe some day Drozd will be resurrected. There will be others, I am sure.

Bing

[JWW]

As a longtime wargamer and retired Army officer, I've always enjoyed modern wargames. However, the WWII wargames are more plentiful and usually better than the modern games. I enjoy TACOPS because it is modern and good. It is the only game that I have kept on my computer for several years in different versions, longer than TOAW, which is also still on my computer.

[Brian Rock]

What got me interested in modern combat was:

a) a CPX AAR, closely followed by

the TacOps demo.

I had a passing interest in modern combat, such as hypothetical WWWIII board games, but mainly at the divisional/corp level. Somehow I stumbled across one of James Sterrett's AARs of a CPX, and thought it sounded like great fun.

I tracked down the demo (this was back in the Arsenal days), downloaded it, and was immediately hooked.

I knew very little about the units, but it didn't matter. I learned what the units did from the game, and now I actually find modern equipment far more interesting than the WWII stuff.

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

> I look forward to TacOps, even if I can't get full screen. I

> don't know why I shouldn't be able to get full screen, but

> I guess that is the way it is.

I designed TacOps as a "windowed" application rather than a "full screen" application so that it could someday cooperate well with other programs at any screen resolution - rather than completely hijack a user's system or demand a specific screen resolution. I knew from the begining that I would eventually get to a place where users would want to and need to be running other applications at the same time as TacOps and that they would need to be able to move seamlessly from one to the other. I also expected monitors and video cards to eventually drop enough in cost that more and more people would begin to use two or more monitors.

The TacOps battle maps vary in size. Some are small and thus do not take up all of the screen. Others are wide enough or tall enough (or both) to fill up the screen or even go beyond screen size - depending on what screen resolution is being used and how big a user's monitor is.

[Binglesh]

I'm running 1280 X 1024 X 32 on both Win98SE and WinXP Home - playing TacOps on the WinXP system, the graphics look pretty good with Visiontek GeF4 and the Samsung 19" SyncMaster Dynaflat, using a KVM so its easy to compare systems.

I'm sure I will get used to not being able to maximize the window - I have other apps like this, but they let the user drag corners and borders to fill the window. Will come up with a solid color background one way or another. Not to worry, not a serious complaint.

Bing

[Covert Sniper]

On 9-17-02 at 4:35 PM EDT I sent the following e-mail directly to redwolf. After some thought I decided to post to the e-mail to this forum

Gee whiz, the answer to question posed was almost so obvious to me that I had to stop and think about it for all of 3 nanoseconds.

The overwhelming problem with all WWII, WWI, Civil War or any other historic computer or board war game is that they all seem to attempt to emulate historic outcome, therefore the conclusion of the game is predetermined. Try, for example, to play any of the V for Victory (old game, I know) game packs and get a substantially different result than the historic outcome. Same with board games like Axis and Allies, Afrika Korps, Blitzkreig, etc. While one might be able to tweak history to a small degree, if you are the German player, you lose. Same if you are the Confederate player in a Civil War game, and so on. (Hmm, don't see many Vietnam war games on the market. Might need a special die roll for the congress turn before the battle phase, the die says 'NO' on all sides!)

In the late eighties a computer game popped on the market called Harpoon (I'm sure you are familiar with it). It was a modern naval warfare simulation and I played it quite a bit even though it crashed a lot. After playing harpoon, it occurred to me that modern combat games were much more interesting because there was no predetermined outcome, no history to emulate, there are only scenarios. Simply stated, either side has a fair shot at winning because there is no historic conclusion that the game is driving itsself towards.

In the early ninties I began searching for a ground combat game similar to Harpoon and came across TacOps. At the time the game was only available for the Mac but was in developement for the PC. I ended up doing some beta testing for the PC version of the game. I have been playing off and on for the last 8 or 9 years. I just got version 4 and while there is mild dissappointment that there are not any new scenarios, the same scenarios tend to play differently each time because of receiving a different level of AI each time a scenario is started which prevents the game from getting stale.

I hope that was some good input for your question. I will take a look at your web site.

Happy TacOp-ting,

Randall Erickson

[Binglesh]

1) Don't agree on the premise that all WW2 wargames have predetermined the outcome. I am fairly certain you have never played SPWAW Steel Panthers World At War), if you had I don't really think you would be saying this.

2) Modern can indeed model historic. Starting with the Israeli-Arab wars - there are several, many are available - there would be Desert Storm, Chechyna, the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, the wars in the southern part of Africa, and a BEEG one: Falklands, which has been exhaustively modeled in paper Harpoon - the outcome is anything but predetermined. I think that in historical terms (if there is such a way of thinking) the British were pretty lucky but that is strictly a personal viewpoint.

3) MajorH: I did up a nice blue mat for TacOPs4 background, thus not having to kill desktop icons when I play and it is working just fine.Problem solved.

Bing

[Carter]

I like modern units because they give me a good understanding what state-of-the-art combat is like. Historical stuff is cool, but state-of-the-art equipment is 'current' and feels 'real' to me.

With TACOPS you can set up a simulation for a modern day "what if?".

One time I even set up a scenario trying to replicate a battle from a Sci-fi novel. The battle was from a STARGATE novel where a huge army of Cat-like creatures wearing power armor takes on an isolated Marine battalion. I used BTRs to simulate the Alien Power armor. (BTR's have similar armor, firepower, and speed to the power armor described in the novel) It was interesting. After I played the TACOPS scenario, I had a better idea of what the battle would look like than the author of the novel! The author would have really benefited from simulating his battle in TACOPS. (The author didn't even know about DPICM. He also didn't realize the effectiveness of several other weapon systems, but he did accurately describe a strategy of concentrating the large enemy force for destruction)

I don't mind powerful units. Playing with them can be very challenging, because it seems to me that there is less margin for error. If you make a bad mistake you can get all your troops killed very quickly. Worrying about all my guys getting killed at any instant keeps me on-edge.

Those WWII players probably just have to adjust to the realities of 21st century warfare. It's a big jump from the 1940's to present day.

[John Osborne]

Hi Redwolf,

How I came to like modern units? It all started when I was a kid and played with those little green army men. You know the ones that you sat on fire

John

[Covert Sniper]

Bing,

You're right, I have never played Steel Panthers. My use of the phrase "ALL historic games are driven to a predetermined end" was certainly an error on my part. Perhaps the word 'all' should be replaced by 'many'. Unfortunately, unless someone like you comes along and says "hey guys, here's a neat WWII game where you REALLY CAN change the historic outcome" you really don't know what you are going to get until you purchase the game and play it.

As to your second point, I agree totally. There are a lot of recent wars fought with modern units, many of which could be modeled with a game like TacOps. But, many (I am avoiding the use of words like all and never ) do not come prepackeaged with, say, a Desert Storm or Chechnya scenario. TacOps does come with a Desert Storm 'what if' scenario but it was a situation that never materialized. Personally, I would rather play a game than try to build my own scenarios. It takes a lot of time and I'm pretty lousy at getting anything that runs well and is not too lopsided. If anyone knows of any games that have prepackaged scenarios from the past 15 or 20 years, I would be grateful to be pointed in the right direction.

I guess another reason that I prefer modern combat games is because the units are just so darn lethal that a small error of judgment can be enough to tip the scales and snowball into a devestating loss. Many historic games seem to allow more of a margin of error, especially if you play on the 'winning' side.

As far as the Falklands were concerned, I agree that the British were lucky. I still do not really understand the reasons for the war (not really an appropriate subject for this forum), but this war offers a tactical lesson to be learned about the importance of planning. Had Argentina planned better, especially on the naval side, the Brits could have had a much tougher go of things. Among other things, it was not exaclty a great plan to have your only aircraft carrier tied to a dock when hostilities broke out.

The bottom line is this: modern combat simulations are substantially different than games using 'older' units that use history as a template, but pehaps in a more esoteric way than I originally descibed. For example, a game which pitted the United Stated against the Britsh and Soviet Union with Germany a neutral county set in the 1940's with WWII era equipment might be very curious, indeed. Wherever the difference lies, the modern combat simulations just appeal to me (it could be my youthful forty-something , I wasn't around for WWII or Korea).

Happy TacOpting,

Randall Erickson

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Red 6:

[QB]Hi Redwolf,

How I came to like modern units? It all started when I was a kid and played with those little green army men. You know the ones that you sat on fire

[Erik Wingren]

Modern Units? I think it's the relevance / reality / current possibility of it, as others have stated, that drives & keeps my interest. I've just started playing with CM, it's been a long while since I did a WWII game, and I keep being struck by what a difference there is in an infantry squad these days, firepower-wise.

And of course, that doesn't even take us to heavier weapons...

I'm having fun w/ CM, but I bet one of the biggest effects will be to drive me back to more TacOps (been playing off and on since '94) -- well, that and my v.4 should be here soon!

I find myself pondering the differences - fundamental principles are of course the same. I think the adjustment for many WWII gamers will be a change of scale - much longer engagement ranges, terrain allowing. Of course, most game map scales are adjusted to reflect that. And, as mentioned, much less "second chance" when you are engaged.

They do exist, though, the second chances, and I've sure seen those stick in your head amazing feats that make you want to award medals to game markers in TacOps. If you haven't given a 'moderns' game a whirl, I sure can't reccomend one more highly.

[Redwolf]

Hi, guys,

I am bumping this thread back to the top, trying to attract more input from maybe new people (or old people with new ideas ).

I plan to update the guide I linked to above and I better do some market research first...

[JJF]

Interesting forum. Guess I missed this one from way back.

I'm more drawn to modern combat like Tacops, BCT and DA because I was in my mid teens in the 80s when there was the potential for the real thing.

I was only 13 when I first read the book "The Third World War" which both terrified...and fascinated me. I was hooked ever since on the subject.

WW2 sims generally don't interest me primarily because I cannot relate to that time period. But I can relate to what I see on CNN nightly. Makes the gaming experience that much more interesting.

[Tim A]

Redwolf,

I've just recently been getting back into wargaming and have been playing Combat Mission a little. After reading your current guide on TacOps I immediately could not wait to try the demo even though I had it downloaded for several months.

I don't really have much to add yet as I've only been able to play a couple scenarios from the demo so far but hope to provide some feedback if I can.

Originally posted by redwolf:

Hi, guys,

I am bumping this thread back to the top, trying to attract more input from maybe new people (or old people with new ideas ).

I plan to update the guide I linked to above and I better do some market research first...

[Jeff Gilbert]

Ahhh ... it all started back when I was 11 with Tactics II. I migrated in WWII games for many years and slowly my fasination with contemporary [modern] equipment and warfare grew. Then came 21 years in the U.S.Army .