From: dmz1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Daniel M Zabetakis)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: Greatest Military/War Games
Date: 8 Apr 92 19:21:45 GMT
Reply-To: dmz1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Daniel M Zabetakis)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <1992Apr7.030804.19912@descartes.waterloo.edu> sjknell@descartes.uwaterloo.ca (Jason Knell) writes:
>
>   What are the greatest/best military/war games to play?  I'm more   
>   interested in games of strategy and/or tactics.  Some people have
>   suggested to me that chess is the ultimate.  But what do you war
>   experts think?
>
>
    Very interesting question. Often on my mind. I'll answer it first,
and then give some boring thoughts of my own.

    In my opinion, Advanced Squad Leader is way at the top of the list.
It's not for the lighthearted (or the light walleted). I guess it's 
about $60 for the minimum, and $100 for a good starter set. The whole
system is about $350-400, I forget how much I've payed over the past
few years.
    The good part of the game can be spelled out in three words: detail,
detail, and detail. Some people consider it a simulation more than a 
game. With something like 400 pages of rules, it does cover alot of
possible situations. They've covered almost the entire war, in every
theater. Only the French are still missing. They cover the US, USSR,
Gernmany, UK, Italians, Japanese, and Chinese in detail, and group other
countries together as Minor Neutrals, and Axis Minors. There are 
individual rules for each individual vehicle, and several varients of
the most important vehicles.
   The bad part of the game is also detail. It is pretty hard to keep
all the rules straight. Hard to keep in practice unless you play alot.
But the game is actually playable. In fact, some of the scenarios are
quite short.

Other thoughts:

    You might want to ask your question in rec.games.board, but you might
just start a flame war.

    To call ASL a good game, you have to feel that it is accurate. This
is not easy to decide, especially for the To Kill table, and armor factors
for tanks. All I can say is that I've never seen anything in my reading
on WWII that contridicts ASL. Who can judge national characteristics?
In all, I think the game is very well balanced in it's treatment of
the different countries.
     That is until the lastest module came out. I think they have given
the US marines too much power. This may be a case of creeping nationalism, 
or just a rection to a design that has made the Japanese slightly too
strong, on the scale of the game.

    There is little point in comparing games. For computers, which game
is better: Tetris or Harpoon? Does the answer matter? I don't really
think so. I picked ASL because it is the most detailed game I have ever
come across. There would be little point to compare it to Chess.

   Chess certainly has an international stature that few games have.
Te problem I have with Chess is that soon computers will be able to beat
even the best humans. After that, I think people will be less interested
in Chess.

   In theory, I would say that a wargame is not good unless there is an
element of chance. Chance is ever present in war. Very wierd things can
happen in ASL. Many games are won or lost based on the malfunction of
a machine gun.

DanZ

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