And these games, you know, they didn't just have rulebooks, they had *designer* notes.
And they were absolutely fascinating to me.
Game designers would talk about what decisions and compromises they made, and why they made them, and how legitimate, or not, how *faithful*, or not, they thought their finished game was.
And there were two points about the representation of the American forces that really stuck with me.
Mind you, this was *50* years ago, when i played that game and read those rules and their designer notes.
Point 1: They represented only one kind of truck and one kind of jeep on the American transport counters.
And the designers said, "American transports were really a vast used car lot, and if we represented them accurately there'd be more truck and car counters than all the rest of the counters in the game."
And they said words to the effect that *nobody*, literally *nobody*, knew how the Americans kept all those vehicles running.
Point 2: The American regular infantry units broke easier than most other regular infantry in the game. But they recovered easier than most other regular infantry, too.
And the designers said those numbers were based on real data.
American regulars consistently routed more easily than most other national forces. But they also consistently rallied and re-grouped faster than most of the other forces as well.
I have no stunning conclusion here. I just have some beer and some whiskey, and the topic came to mind, cuz the storm brought down a tree, and it scared the shit outta me and I ran away, but now I'm back out here on the deck.
I do believe in national characteristics, to a point. But their *best* use is as fodder for affectionate humor.
@GeePawHill about 25 years ago I visited Colditz Castle, the WW2 POW camp where the Nazis kept prisoners who had already escaped from another prison camp. This plan backfired for them, because Colditz turned into a graduate-level course in escapology. There's a great little museum of all the crazy things the prisoners did to get out, up to and including building a glider in the loft out of scavenged materials. Anyway, the guide remarked that escape attempts tended to use national characteristics to get outside the narrow conceptual boxes of their captors' thoughts. French prisoners escaped using élan; British prisoners escaped using weaponised dottiness; Polish prisoners escaped using sheer suicidal bravery. American prisoners, who only arrived towards the end of the war, sat back and waited for the might of the US Army to come and get them.
@pozorvlak "weaponized dottiness" is going in my collection of great phrases.
@GeePawHill I think my grandfather was one of the many, many people who kept those vehicles running.
He said he never wanted to be cold again, and he’d eat as much butter and sugar as he damn well pleased. I only ever heard one war story, and it involved him threatening to shoot his own soldiers if they didn’t get back in their trucks and drive like hell to escape incoming artillery. After the war, the army wouldn’t discharge him so they could force him to get help, but…I’m not sure it did.
It was a long time ago, and we couldn't afford the add-ons for a long time so the Stalingrad Tractor Factory had a pretty major workout IIRC. I thought I read in the notes that the yanks were so good at keeping their vehicles going because they were the first country with really widespread vehicle ownership (model T anyone?) so every squad would have someone who had vehicle maintenance skills, unlike the European militaries where vehicles had been rare, or luxury items, again, IIRC
@GeePawHill Still got Squad Leader. (I confess that I don’t remember ever playing.)
@marick I also still own all of the modules and all of the boards, and even some horrible third-party boards, all stored up in the loft as a means of punishing those of my family who will eventually have to throw all this shit out.
Fuck'em.
@GeePawHill Having dealt with the disassembly of my parents’ house, I can’t quite join in your abuse of those who follow you.
Not that I’ve thrown out anything since my mother’s estate sale.
@GeePawHill Cosmic Encounter and Illuminati! were more my speed. I can’t remember which one of them let me watch a marriage start to dissolve right before my eyes. Probably Illuminati.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati_(game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Encounter
I still have a great fondness for Steve Jackson and microgames (most of my counters and boards wargaming was Ogre and GEV)
@marick @GeePawHill cosmic encounter was one of my favorite games !
@marick @GeePawHill and I still have my boxes of Diplomacy and Full Metal Planet.
@thinkb4coding @marick Amongst my many claims to high-school fame, I founded the Diplomacy club.
I once won with *Italy*.
@GeePawHill @marick with each turn taking up to 1h.. A game often ended at 7 or 8 in the morning...
@GeePawHill @marick this is very long (far more than any recent game) but the game design is super interesting.
@thinkb4coding @marick We did moves on Tuesday and Friday, so there was an awesome amount of invisible skullduggery.