How to Play Wargames
How to Play Wargames Assume you are the superior player in a game; that is, you are the one with most things in your favor (number of units, strength of units, positions, etc.). You have two options: Have a lot of fun being aggressive and outrageously innovative and take a chance on losing the game or be cautious and have a pretty-much assured, albeit dull, victory. If you are the inferior player, you have only one choice: Dig in, use your head and have an interesting game. You are at a disadvantage.
You can't afford to make mistakes and you will be faced with one challenge after another. This explains why many players prefer the defending side since with the superior side it is too easy to get lazy, become adventurous and feel foolish for losing a game that should have been an assured victory. On the other hand, simply
settling down into a dull, predictable pattern in which you grind the other fellow into defeat is no fun either. The inferior side in any game is generally more exciting. Besides that, you already have an excuse for losing and you feel a lot better if you happen to win.
What Kind of Wargamer Are You?
Once you have comprehended the basic principles of any game, it is time to decide which kind of gamer you are. Put somewhat crudely, you are either going to play to win or to play to learn history. Always keep in mind that what constitutes victory in a historical situation is somewhat vaguer than what is presented so clearly in the game.
If you're going to play the game primarily to experience history, I refer you to the section of this book on "why play" which explores in some detail what bits of history to look for in a game. Since the game is a game, you will find your "historical experience" considerably enhanced by a use of many of the techniques found in this section. For this reason, the first thing I discussed was how to basically analyze a game. Much of the rest of this section consists of analysis and tricks of the trade.
The Play Cycle
Once you have learned the game, your next step is to discover the "play cycle pattern" of the game. Every game, because of its unique combination of elements, has a certain dynamic about its play. This dynamic manifests itself in a pattern of how most games played will go.
For example, take a game in which one side (like the Americans in the Battle of the Bulge) is considerably weaker than their attacking opponents (in this case, the Germans). As the game progresses, however, the weaker defending side continually receives far more reinforcements than the attacking side. This usually means that the attacking side must win early if it is to win at all, before the defender's inexorably growing strength makes a stalemate quite likely and defeat of the attacker quite possible.
In some games, the play cycle pattern is quite obvious. In many games, though, it is a bit more complex. By this I mean that one side may have an advantage in one section of the game map while being at a disadvantage in another. Even more likely is a situation in which one side has a potential advantage which can be realized only by making the correct preliminary maneuvers before beginning the battle.
Even more subtle are those games in which one side's advantage is not immediately obvious, but is buried under layers of special rules and conditions of the game. Again, this type of advantage can be uncovered and put to use only after careful analysis of the game. Remember that this play cycle is an important bit of historical insight you don't normally get out of a history book. It's another example of how a game will show you historical information that can only be obtained from a wargame.
The easiest and most straightforward way to find out what the play cycle pattern is, is to simply sit down and play the game solitaire a few times. If not the whole game, then at least the same sequence of turns over and over again. The opening turns of a game are usually quite dramatic and these can be profitably played two or three times.
It's very important to analyze a game through solitaire play. For one thing, you can concentrate. It's just you and the game. There are also psychological elements. There's no pressure on you to win, although, let's face it, you can still lose playing against yourself. But if nobody's there to see it when you screw up, you learn from your mistakes without suffering the ridicule of others (unless you enjoy dwelling on your defeats in public). You also don't waste another players time, as your inept moves provide no challenge at all for your opponent.
A Necessary Talent
Although the play cycle pattern's the sum total of all the things that are going on in the game and how they manifest themselves as a pattern, there are, even in the simplest games, a tremendous number of things going on at once. As a gamer, you are able to handle this multitude of elements in your head at the same time primarily because you are one of those rare people who have the interest, aptitude and mental agility to handle all of the elements going on at the same time. It's much like somebody's talent for playing a musical instrument. He doesn't consciously command his eyes, ears, fingers, lips whatever to do all of the coordinated things that must be done to produce a musical sound. The musician simply does it. Wargamers bring to the games a similar aptitude.
What we are talking about here is examining the various detailed actions that go into the play of the game, simultaneously and then sorting out the really useful information.
People who cannot play the games (as well as many who can, but have not bothered to try it yet) are totally overwhelmed when first confronted with a wargame. Many people overcome this initial state of shock by applying their historical knowledge, which makes a lot of sense since this is one of the key reasons why many people get into the games in the first place. This historical approach often leads to some interesting game results. Invariably, the actions of the historical commanders were not necessarily the most efficient, but at least repeating history gets you into playing the game.
