Re: Age and Complexity

(Other people might also wonder, so that's why I'm responding to the 
list - If anybody disagrees with my opinions, and wants to talk about 
them, let's take it out of the list, since this message is already 
verging on unrelated to the topic/mission of the list...)

>  >> I haven't played any GZG games yet, but I'm doing a fair bit of
>  actual wargaming - the real thing.  I'm doing (face to face) The 
>  Longest Day (Avalon Hill), (PBeM) Napoleon and East Front (both by 
>  Columbia Games).  I'm trying to get a campaign of Afrika (The 
>  Gamers) going, and I kinda want to start doing Tunisia (The 
>  Gamers) solo or FtF, so that I can tackle Enemy at the Gates or 
>  DAK later on... 
> 
> I gotta ask: what makes you think GZG is not real wargaming? Not
> trying to be antagonistic, just curious.

Well, for once, it isn't historical.  Notice I referred to it as 
WARgaming.   Tho', to be honest, if the miniature game isn't of a 
historical battle, I can't refer to it as wargaming either.  
Speculation, perhaps, but if you toss Wellington and his men into an 
Austerlitz miniatures battle, well, it is a wargame in the most loose 
sense of the term.  For me, a wargame has to simulate a historical 
event, or a historical possibility (what if we had done 
Anvil/Dragoon?	What if the Egyptians had decided NOT to attack once 
they got across the Suez in '73?).

Some people call this ConSim (and it took me a while to realize that 
it stood for Conflict Simulation).  I think that is a haughty, 
I'm-better-than-you name.  But I also realize that while the Columbia 
Games block games are the best wargames out there to simulate the 
stresses of Command and Control and Military Intelligence (or lack of 
it...), I find myself hard pressed at times to call them wargames 
because these games don't have the 2240 counters Enemy at the Gates 
does...  That is a problem in the hobby at large, and is even more 
off-topic than the bulk of the message...

Again, anything else on this topic should be mailed privately to me.

Alfredo
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Alfredo Lorente 		  "End This." -- Delenn
Minneapolis, MN 		Lines of Communication
alfredo@bitstream.net	      Babylon 5