Mr. Whitehead. I have been playing those games and many, many others for 49 years...my first game was Tactics II, 1958, a Freshman in high school. In fact I still have a collection of over 300 games of every era (actually down from over 500 at one time...thank God for eBay). With all due respect, I don't see the same similarity of <b>full intelligence</b> boardgames to Talonsoft and HPS computer games other than the intrinsic fact that they use hexagons,"unit counters" to represent armies, Strength Points, Terrain Costs and Results Charts to simulate a battle. Whether computer ACW or WWII computer games I have always happily "hyped" TS games and later HPS games to miniature and boardgame buddies who baulked at the concept of computer wargames...My standard line regarding the ACW games (to convince them to try them) was to tell them it is like SPI's <i>Great Battles of the American Civil War </i>(i.e. TSS, Pea Ridge, Drive on Washington, Jackson at the Crossroads, et.al.) ONLY the computer does all "the hard stuff" like LOS calculation and combat results and that there is a real FOW. So you see it is not knowing the battles from pushing around little cardboard counters that you are enlightening me about at all. It is one rather the significant difference...that of a TRUE fog of war...that is the big...actually principal difference between playing boardgames and playing computer games. It is much easier to assess your own battle plan and that of your opponents when you can look down on a map and see all of his units, what they are, how strong they are, and where they are headed including when behind terrain, in the woods, and even off the map in holding boxes...yes there are exceptions like PanzerGruppe Guderian with its little ? marks, but with all due respect, it is not as simple as you suggest.
My guess is that there are abundant young men, new to the hobby of computer gaming that have not seen or played boardgame "one" or even miniatures. My problem as you may be suggesting is not having made my bones on decades of boardgames...My problem is that I haven't played enough of these games and the club doesn't really provide, and can't do so, any kind of sanctioned ranking of skill other than to tell "newbies" to seek out other newbies which by your very example, one might say: sounds like a newbie, his point level and rank says newbie, his few games make one think he is a newbie...but alas as you and your brother they are not really newbies at all. I am old enough and mature enough to know that one has to gain experience through study, practice and hard knocks. My complaint is that it is hard enough getting the education to these games through the baptisms of fire without also having to play veterans (whether in sheep's clothing [:)] or not) and without also having no knowledge of the possible disadvantage of unbalanced scenarios (HPS not TS) and even some gamey players. The only formal prep is a couple of West Point or VMI games where an accomplished player beats the snot out of you once or twice, points out a few of the stupid things you did, and if you are lucky and they felt sorry for you, you post a couple of minors or a draw, and then you are a three-hour wonder sent off to the wars.
This is not criticism...I like to think of it as observation. Someone else started this customer thread...well if you want insight into how to attract a newbie, train a newbie and keep a newbie as the foundation of the club's future and its health, then maybe someone should give thought to what we see every day on TV, in newspapers, magazines and billboards. Actively addvertising the club and not just with a note on the HPS site letting perspective buyers know that they can find opponents in the ACW, NAW, MBC, CCC etc. but that they will also find an excellent and meaningful training system, matching system, comradrie, roleplaying, etc. We take this for granted because we are here and staying and playing...even me...I came back and was welcomed, thank you. But maybe some of the people we are "losing" or are not signing up don't really see anything to attract them.
I have stated in other posts...I think...and didn't I see something about maybe not even being 10% of the customer base of HPS? It is my understanding from a good source that the vast majority of men, and probably a desparate housewife or two, buy the games TO PLAY SOLITAIRE (and this applies to boardgamers too as I have learned from my 49 years of playing, collecting, selling, and actually designing a couple of boardgames that got published - Port Stanley Wargamer No.28 a collector's item). I call them "closet gamers" and who knows why...maybe they don't want their colleagues or friends...we all have liberals in our lives...to think they are warmongers. Do you ALWAYS call yourself a wargamer or do you call you and your games by the euphemism developed by Dunnigan at SPI and Co. "Conflct Simulations?" Don't want your friends who are not of the same cloth to think you are strange AND a hawk...you know...all those Bush-bashers who didn't vote for him like no one else did. Some of those closet board and computer gamers maybe don't like the competition...losing, or are not social face-to-face kind of players (i.e. against humans on the computer or over a game table or like to play with themselves making turns to perfection, not spontaneously moving and taking hours to make one move...do we all remember <i>The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and World in Flames?</i>..like chess players, or maybe buy boardgames to set up and compliment their reading and study of military history, and now do the same with computer games.
My point is that you have to know your market if you are going to attract one and I am guessing, but I wonder if all of us have come to club membership almost by accident save perhaps for the notes on the Tiller and Hamilton sites hyping the club as a place to play these games. It might be useful to also have an advertised link explaining and assuring prospective members that they will be taught or tutored and/or honed and have fun, not be intimated by the advanced skill of veteran players looking for new meat to whip. Could be a big recruiting point. As well as telling them that we have wonderful position papers...well some anyway...on the battles and many on tactics, and that we are great guys from all walks of life and all ages. Now I am getting really sickening.[:I]
Please, please do not mistake my banter...I LOVE this club..again...already and General Moose. I didn't start this string, I am just "participating"...or maybe boring you. The truth is that no matter how you try to package it or present it as brotherly and comradriely; the club IS also competitive...NOT "mean" competitive, but a "friendly, intellectural pursuit including a dimension, for some, of role-playing. Nevertheless it is after all about war...and war has winners and losers and losing isn't the fun part, and playing is a lot more enjoyable when it results in winning, at least sometimes, and that the club does all it can to help you become experienced not drive you back into solitare gaming.
I also know it can't be all things to all people and one has to earn their stripes, yada, yada...my problem, besides being long-winded [:(] is that I need to be more patient and use all that tactical know-how that you brilliant vets have given us at the War College...it is too easy to blame design...or lack of patience. But Mr. Whitehead, believe me...for some veterans of boardgames...these computer games ONLY look like them...FOW is an incredible difference...just look alone at how one finds his first human opponent after ONLY beating the kimchee out of the A.I. for months and months until you found the ACW.
Thanks...I won't talk anymore... I promise...its a good thing we don't have a newsletter...you would really be sick of hearing my rants and dumb questions about the engine. Now that I shot off my mouth I suppose I will have to have be given some kind of KP like being on a committee[:)]
Thanks.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by KWhitehead</i>
<br />Col. Ciampa
<font color="red">I suspect your story is more typical than we would like in the club..... find instead they are fighting someone that has been playing Avalon Hill Gettysburg, Terrible Swift Sword, TS Gettysburg and HPS Gettysburg for thirty years.</font id="red">LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
LtCol.Tom Ciampa
2nd Bgde,1st Cav
XIV Corps, AoC
Games: TS/BG: AN, BR, CH, GB, SH - HPS: GB, SH
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